Chapter 5 Miranda on the Line
FIVE
MIRANDA ON THE LINE
ANNALIESE
So… I think I’m getting married.
Opening the door to my car, shaky fingers struggling with the key fob, then the door handle… I finally get it open, tossing my purse onto the passenger seat before flinging myself into the driver’s side.
Three hours ago, I panicked. I know Eric well enough that his are no idle threats. If I don’t do what he says, he won’t just go after me. He’ll target my sister, and I can’t let that happen.
So what did I do? I hatched a plan. If I could find a husband, Eric would have to leave me the fuck alone.
Preferably an Order member for that level of protection, but the moment I started to get dressed again to head out again, I admitted to myself that I wasn’t really picky. I just needed someone.
However, if I wanted to convince one of the Owed to take a chance on me, my best shot was at the King’s Court.
An Order gentleman’s club, I had to flutter my lashes at the doorman to get in, then spent a half an hour sizing up the men.
I was looking for those who seemed on the younger side—but obviously still legal—because the odds of them being new members without a formal wife were a lot higher than the middle-aged men.
I thought I had one. He said his name was Kyle, he was twenty, and he didn’t have the connections to Claim an Offering.
He was still interested in getting to know me, though, and when I mentioned that I was looking to enter into a year-long marriage of convenience with an Owed, his only concern was whether or not he’d get to fuck me.
I was prepared for that. I doubted that I’d be so fortunate as to find a husband who didn’t want to have sex with his wife, and after Eric, then my stranger at the Last Prayer, I felt confident that, so long as he treated me well, I could stomach fucking anyone if that’s what he required of his wife.
So, yeah, I was prepared to go that far once our marriage was finalized and I told him so.
What I wasn’t prepared for?
Was my one-night stand walking up to me as though he owned the place.
One look. One gesture. He got rid of Kyle, sidling into his place, completely oblivious to the effect he has on me. I wanted to throw myself at him. Worse, I wanted to snag his hand, drag him to the nearest bathroom, and have a re-run of the night I haven’t been able to forget.
I knew who he was, and then he gave me his name, and I think he expected me to know who he was.
Sebastien Reynolds. It sounded familiar, and it took a second for me to remember that the big building downtown—the Order’s headquarters down the street from Eric’s law offices—is the Reynolds building.
That means he must be super high up in the Order, and though I knew I shouldn’t bother, I asked him anyway.
I asked him to marry me.
I thought he’d laugh. I definitely thought he’d admit that, like Eric, he’s married and just wanted a little strange on the side.
I… yeah, I didn’t think he’d jump to the conclusion that I was pregnant, though when I remember that we didn’t use any protection that night in the bar, it makes sense that he’d be concerned.
He doesn’t have to be. When I lived with Eric, he insisted on birth control.
Not condoms, of course; he was too good for them.
But I was on the pill since he—at his grand age of forty-six—wasn’t ready for kids.
I’ve stopped since I left him, but I’m not an idiot.
Even though it was only a day or two after I took my last pill when I went to the Last Prayer, I’m not the type of woman to take precaution.
I took a morning after pill, plus had a panel done a month later to make sure that my stranger—and my former lover—didn’t pass anything else along to me.
I was all clear. Like I told him, I’d be the perfect wife. I can cook. Clean. Fuck. I’m a pro at organizing, and if he wants me out of his sight, I can disappear, too. I just figured that he already had one.
He doesn’t. At least, he told me that he didn’t. I want to believe him… but I believed Eric once upon a time, too.
Which is why, despite the way he smiled at me, asking me to come home with him, I had to refuse. There’s so much I have to do, and as I start my car, heading out of the Court’s parking lot, I start by texting my sister one-handed.
Hey. Do you know a Sebastien Reynolds?
It’s late, Miranda has school in the morning, but she’s a teen. That phone is glued to her hand 24/7, and I’m not surprised when she answers me right away.
sounds familiar… Order?
Yes.
cool
I can ask around, get back to you later?
That would be awesome. Thanks!
np
I toss my phone back to the passenger seat.
Sebastien Reynolds. Sebastien.
“Sebastien.”
I try out the sound of his name on my tongue. I don’t think I said it half as well as he did, but the way he whispered in my ear how he doesn’t fuck his friends… yeah. I don’t think I can bring myself to call him Bas if that’s all I am.
He’s Sebastien, and if this actually happens, he’ll be my husband.
Yikes.
I wake up the next morning with a gasp, heart pounding, sheets twisted around my legs as if I spent the whole night fighting them.
Know what? I might have.
My sleep was a mess of half-dreams—Sebastiens’s voice, Eric’s threats, my sister’s face—everything blurred together like a warning I don’t understand. And that’s a lie. I know exactly why they haunted my consciousness, just like I know what I’ll have to do to make them go away…
Sitting up, I reach around my messy bed for my phone. I find the charging cord first, yanking it toward me. Tugging my phone off of it, I peer down at the screen.
I shudder out a breath.
Okay. It could’ve been worse. Six missed calls—all from Miranda, all before eight—as well as four texts. Three are from Eric, one from Miranda.
I look at hers first.
Randa
Are you awake? Call me.
I glance at the time. It’s ten o’clock, later than I usually sleep. It’s also Thursday. Miranda will be in school. I could call her and she’d totally answer, but I don’t want to get her in trouble. She has lunch at eleven-forty. I’ll just wait to call her then.
Without the excuse to avoid the other three texts, I brace myself and tap on Eric’s name.
EW
We need to talk.
Don’t ignore me.
You owe me a response, Annaliese. Stop this.
No, thanks.
My hands are shaking as I go through the motions that finally block him. If I really do get married, he’ll probably be one of the first to hear about it. I just need to get this done as soon as possible so that Eric doesn’t interfere.
I know him. He’ll expect me to ignore him, get pissed that I am, doing exactly what he accused me of doing—namely sulk—and then reach out again when he feels like it.
Sure, there’s a chance someone saw me at the Court and ran right to him, but here’s hoping that I’m lucky enough that my half an hour visit was missed by Eric’s spies.
That’s the best part of a marriage of convenience.
All I have to do is spend an hour or so getting a marriage license with my husband-to-be, sign it, and Eric can fuck off.
There’s no need for a wedding. No big to-do.
I just want the protection that comes with marrying one of the Owed, and if Sebastien honestly will go along with it, we can be married by tomorrow.
It could be today, but even I’m not that hasty. I spent three years working with Eric. I’d be a fool to marry a stranger—even one as sexy and good-looking and, well, blessed as Sebastien Reynolds—without some sort of protection.
And I don’t mean condoms this time.
I want a contract. A marriage agreement.
A set of rules that we can both live by, including the one-year time limit that I’m insisting on.
After that, we can go our separate ways.
He can be Eric, I can be Cicely, and as long as we stay discreet, we can have our own lives while Miranda and Colton start out theirs.
Of course, that’s assuming that Sebastien will marry me. That I want to marry him.
That depends on what Miranda found out from her friends in the Order.
Me… I never had any. By the time I was eighteen, I’d already caught Eric’s eye.
I had no idea that he’d basically Claimed me without Claiming me.
He was just always there, being sweet, being kind, helping me with Mom’s event planning business before he swooped me away, getting me to work for him.
And once I did? That wasn’t all he wanted from me.
I was his in every way that counted except for in the eyes of the Order. But because he coddled me, protected me, kept me hidden… groomed me, I don’t have the same contacts that my sister does. Something tells me I should know who Sebastien Reynolds is, but I don’t, and I only hope she does.
While I wait for Miranda to reach her lunch break, I get up.
Because there’s another phone call I’m avoiding, I go and have breakfast, then shower.
I’ll change later, but for now, I throw on a pair of sweatpants I bought after I left Eric.
I add a t-shirt, only realizing after I tug it on that it’s the same one I was wearing when I took that fateful trip to the Last Prayer.
If that’s not a sign, I don’t know what is.
By the time I’m done drying my hair, my phone alarm’s going off, letting me know that I can call Miranda.
Sitting down on the edge of my bed, nibbling on my bottom lip, I wait for her to answer.
My sister picks up on the second ring, breathless and audibly excited. “Are you okay? Annie? Did something happen?”
I hadn’t expected her to sound so alert during the school day. “Hey, Randa. Yeah. I’m fine. Why?”
“Because you asked me about Sebastien Reynolds, and when I got the scoop, you didn’t answer.”
Because I was sleeping. Because I had erotic dreams about my maybe-husband, and nightmares about what Eric would do to him if he found out that the man I slept with in Sackerville is actually a member of the Order.